Official Oil Spill Estimate Doubles to 20,000-40,000 Barrels Per Day

Most of the experts have concluded that, given the limited data available and the small amount of time to process that data, the best estimate for the average flow rate for the leakage prior to the insertion of the RITT is between 25,000 to 30,000 barrels per day, but could be as low as 20,000 barrels per day or as high as 40,000 barrels per day.

The increase in flow-rate estimates over the past several weeks has been a frequent occurrence: